September 6th, 2009Alan WalshReal Ale

I had a hard day on the other love of my life today – Hockey. Yes  I am aware that it is a girls sport! Anyway, I’ve been at the Yorkshire Cup tournament all day which involved stopping and starting and ultimately just getting the result we needed to not get relegated from next year’s tournament. Limping back to the car earlier this evening I decided I needed a Chinese takeaway and my pre marathon ration of beer (T- 7 days until normal service resumes).

So, having ordered a Special Chow Mein, I nipped down to a Somerfield garage to pick up a bottle. There wasn’t a massive range, not that you would expect there to be as it is one of those mini supermarkets that seem to have attached themselves to petrol stations just recently. The choice was mainly limted to quite mainstream ales so I was quite conscious that I didn’t want to pick one that had already been reviewed…racking my brains I couldn’t recall ever writing anything about Old Speckled Hen, despite having had it on a number of occasions. I decided that this was the winner for tonight.

I had always assumed this beer was called Old Speckled Hen because of it’s dark reddish brown colour which, if I recall correctly from growing up in the country, is the same as a lot of chickens. It turns out that I was wrong. The beer is actually named after a car, which was known as the ‘Old  Speckled Un’,  used in an MG factory years ago. In 1979 MG asked Moorland Brewery to create a commemorative beer to celebrate the factory’s 50th anniversary and somewhere along the  line the name was changed to Old Speckled Hen before finding its way onto the bottle.

This story is one of those that I think would make James May puff out his chest with pride in English tradition and, to be honest, the fact that you can walk into a Tesco Extra and buy a beer named after a car, to commemorate a factory’s 50th anniversary 30 years ago, kind of gives me a warm glow as well.

The beer itself, as said above, is  reddish in colour. Weighing in at 5.2% abv it is a reasonably strong ale, although the taste is not as strong as I was expecting from a 5.2% abv of this colour. There is a hint of fruity sweetness, particularly when smelling the glass, but the heart of this ale is it’s maltiness. The Malt is apparent throughout but expands as you swollow and lingers for just the right amount of time.

Having been around for longer than me, 30 years, I am not surprised that drinking this ale is a pleasing experience. This sort of longevity is usually bred from quality and that is the case here. This all-round ‘goodness’ explains the wide availablility and longevity of the brand but also why it would not feature on my list of top ten beers. It does not have any unique or strong qualities that make you stand up and make a decision. You could give it to anyone who drinks ale and safely know that they would never love nor hate it. A really good all round beer none the less.

Tags: 1979, 5-6%, Commemorative, Greene King, MG, Moorland Brewery, Old Speckled Hen